L-13 · Legal
Cookie Policy
The short version
Two cookies keep the site working, and neither is written until there is a reason to write it: one records your answer to the notice, and one keeps you signed in if you use your account page. Page visits are counted without any cookie at all. Nothing on this site shares anything with an advertising network today.
You can change your mind whenever you like. There is a Cookie preferences control in the footer of every page, and one at the bottom of this one.
Necessary
These are not optional, because without them the thing you asked for does not happen. Neither is used to build a profile, and neither is shared.
| Name | Set by | What it is for | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
| bp_consent | BDS Landscape Co. | Remembers the choices you made about this page, so you are not asked again on every visit. Written only once you answer the notice, and not before. | 180 days |
| bds_acct | BDS Landscape Co. | Keeps you signed in to your own account page after you enter the code emailed to you. Only set if you sign in, and readable only by the server. | 90 days |
Analytics
BDS counts page visits with Umami, which is run by Butler Performance on its own server rather than by an advertising company. It records the page you are on and its title, the link, ad or search that brought you, the country, region and city your connection resolves to, your screen size and your browser's language, and the browser, operating system and device type your browser reports. It records no name, no email address, no phone number, and nothing you type into a form on this site.
It does keep an identifier, and it is worth being exact about that rather than claiming it does not. Every visit is filed under a session id, which the analytics server works out for itself by hashing your IP address, the browser details above and this site's own id together with a secret it holds. Nothing is written to your device, so there is nothing for you to clear and nothing that can be read by another site. Because the id is derived from your connection and your browser, a later visit from the same connection and the same browser can land on the same id, which is how a return visit is counted as one. Umami can also be asked to attach an account id of the site's choosing to a session, so that visits by a known person can be joined up across devices. This site never does that and never sends it one.
That is why it is on unless you turn it off: there is no cookie to consent to and nothing stored on your device. It is still yours to switch off, in the preferences panel, and doing so stops the counting immediately.
| Name | Set by | What it is for | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | BDS Landscape Co. (self hosted) | Page counts are recorded without a cookie of any kind, and nothing at all is written to your device. The visit is filed under a session id that exists only in the analytics database, worked out there from your IP address and browser. Section 03 describes it. | Nothing on your device to expire |
Advertising
BDS does not run an advertising pixel on this site at present. The choice and this table are documented here because the option exists in the site and would be switched on with a policy update, not quietly.
Two things are deliberately turned off in how it is configured, and they are the two that matter. Automatic advanced matching, which would send Meta a hashed copy of a phone number or email address typed into the estimate form, is off. So is the server side Conversions API. Your phone number is never handed to Meta or to any other advertiser, which is the same promise made in the privacy policy and on the text message program.
| Name | Set by | What it is for | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|---|
| _fbp | Meta (Facebook, Instagram) | Ties a visit to an ad click so BDS can tell which advertising produced work. Set only after you turn advertising on. | 90 days |
| _fbc | Meta (Facebook, Instagram) | Records the ad click that brought you here, for the same measurement. Set only after you turn advertising on. | 90 days |
Turning advertising off deletes these cookies straight away and stops anything further being sent. Meta's script cannot be unloaded from a page that is already open, so reload the page and it is gone entirely.
What is not a cookie, and is not covered by the choice
When you arrive from a search, an ad or a link, the site notes which one in your browser's session storage so that an estimate request can be credited to the right source. It holds the campaign tags on the address you arrived at, the site that linked to you and the first page you landed on. It is deleted the moment you close the tab, it is never sent anywhere except with an estimate you choose to submit, and it cannot follow you to another website.
It is recorded here rather than left undocumented, which is the honest way to handle something that falls outside a consent choice on purpose. If it ever grows into something that outlives the tab, it belongs in the table above instead.
Your choices
The preferences panel below is the same one that appeared when you first arrived. Your answer is kept in the bp_consent cookie on this domain and nowhere else, for 180 days, and it is recorded against version 1 of this policy. If the policy changes in a way that affects what is set, that version goes up and you are asked again rather than being taken to have agreed to something you never saw.
Your browser can also clear or block all of this itself, in its own settings, and blocking cookies from this site breaks nothing except staying signed in to your account page.
Questions
Call the office on (706) 936-2244 or email bdslandscape61@gmail.com. The wider policy on what BDS does with what you tell it is in the privacy policy.